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All Blacks

Super Smith more relaxed

Feeling more comfortable in the All Blacks environment had halfback Aaron Smith stepping up even higher in the 22-0 Bledisloe Cup triumph at Eden Park on Saturday night.

The diminutive Manawatu marvel might look like a humming bird darting between kauri trees but he looked at home and even managed to unleash his running game with one startling break which almost produced a try.

"That was really good tonight. Obviously I'm feeling a little bit more comfy but the guys give me the calls around me and give me the confidence to have a go myself and the way I am playing is a credit to the boys making me feel so good.

"All the fast ball we were getting was giving me the opportunity to get out and see the situations and that, like I said, trying to look for it more. It's a part of my game I really back myself in being able to not just be a one-trick pony. I've been able to show a bit of what I can do but you've always got work-ons in your game and I should probably have backed myself a bit more when I got through," he said.

"It was a good feeling tonight. Last week was pretty amazing to get one hand on it, and tonight being able to put two hands on it, and the way we did it was pretty awesome and it was one of those games I'll never forget."

Smith said he was impressed with the intensity of the Australian defence where they managed to put the All Blacks under a lot of pressure.

"They put a lot of pressure on the inside 'd', rushing up and we were pretty inaccurate and we were trying to skip the ball on and shovelling it on. I think we should probably have been patient and perhaps we were trying to score off first and second phase and that didn't really help us. We were putting ourselves under pressure and letting them off the hook.

"Full credit to them for being able to put us under that much pressure."

He said the speed of the first half had been tremendous and with 10 minutes to go to halftime everyone had been blowing.

"I think they were trying to slow the game down to get Genia back on but we got pretty knackered as well."

The intention after halftime had been to put Australia under more pressure by going through the middle and once they had a bit of a buffer after fullback Israel Dagg's try they were able to play the pressure game.